Gar Alperovitz

Gar Alperovitz (born May 5, 1936) is Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland, College Park Department of Government and Politics. He is a former Fellow of King's College, Cambridge; a founding Fellow of Harvard's Institute of Politics; a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies; and a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution. Alperovitz also served as a Legislative Director in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and as a Special Assistant in the Department of State. Alperovitz is a founding principal of The Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland, and a member of the board of directors for the New Economics Institute (NEI).

Author Updates

Originally published in Yes! Magazine on February 23, 2015.
Just before his State of the Union address last month, President Obamashowed up in the small city of Cedar Falls, Iowa, to highlight the work of Cedar Falls Utilities, a publicly owned utility that operates an Internet network in the city. Cedar Falls has one of the oldest community-owned networks in the country and, with recent upgrades, is now one of the fastest. In addition to having higher-speed connections

Originally published in Truthout on January 14, 2015.
Quite apart from the political challenges it represents, the current New York City police slowdown illuminates a classic general issue that must be faced by those concerned with how to structure a next system that moves us beyond the problems of both traditional corporate capitalism and traditional state socialism.
While we may enjoy some satisfaction in the NYPD’s attempt to enrage its critics by giving them exactly what t

Originally published in Aljazeera America on January 12, 2015.
Whether or not one agrees with the decisions taken by our political leaders who sent them off to war, it’s undeniable that the veterans of the various post-9/11 wars are suffering. The nearly three million veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who have returned to civilian life are afflicted with an official unemployment rate of around 9 percent — substantially higher than the overall rate of 5.6 percent. Another half million h

Originally published in TruthOut on November 9, 2014.
There have been endless post-mortems on the 2014 midterm elections, complete with explanations proffered as to why Democrats and their allies failed so spectacularly, and projections of doom and gloom lasting until the next election cycle. However, in a profound sense this election changes very little. The dominant reality we face is one of substantial ongoing political stalemate and decay, and this sets the terms of reference for

Originally published in Al Jazeera America on November 10, 2014.
“Even if the United States deals with its carbon emission problem, the Chinese won’t. So what’s the point?”
“You can’t condemn the entire global South to abandon energy development, and you can’t provide enough with solar and wind. So what’s the point?”
“Besides, the whole enterprise of trying to achieve a future sufficiently carbon-free to deal with the most important problems is politically hopeless.” <

Originally published in Shelterforce on FALL/WINTER 2013/14.
Despite its great wealth, the United States today faces enormous difficulties, with no easily discernible answers in sight. Elections occur and debates ensue, but many of the most pressing problems facing ordinary citizens are only marginally affected. For the average American, the trends have been bad for a very long time. Real wages for 80 percent of American workers have been stagnant for decades. At the same time, income

TeleSUR English’s “The Laura Flanders Show” hosted a conversation with economic theorists Gar Alperovitz and David Harvey on what is to be done about wealth inequality and capitalism, and efforts currently underway to move beyond them.
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